In 1996 I spent two weeks in Russia as part of a United States Information Agency exchange advising a newspaper trying to make it in the post-Soviet era. This newspaper was considered “independent” because it didn’t have Communist Party ties, like in the old days, but it was still partly owned by the city council of the city in which it published.

I was supposed to explain to them how a newspaper in a free society works. The first problem mentioned was that they weren’t really free and independent if the city council and the mayor held the power of their purse over them.

All the editors, reporters and photographers, over shots of vodka and skewers of shashlik, admitted they knew this to be true, but said they had no recourse. Until the day they could start their own independent paper, which they owned outright, they just wanted advice on how to be aggressive, independent journalists “the American way,” as the editor termed it, under their peculiar circumstances.

They understood that getting in bed with their local government hampered them journalistically. They knew their mayor, a strong personality who had served as mayor since before the end of communism, might at any time decide a story was inappropriate for publication. It hadn’t happened yet, they said, but I suspected that was only because the editors, schooled under totalitarianism, knew where the line was drawn.

That’s the background with which I read this morning that The Carrboro Citizen wants to get in bed with the Carrboro town government by accepting a low-interest (2 percent) loan from the town fathers. They requested $100,000 but the town seems to want to fork over only $50,000. Town officials say they offer the loans to create jobs and help create a “vibrant” downtown.

To be eligible for loans, applicants must show that they’ve been turned down by at least two banks. In other words, the town only gives loans to those the banks have already deemed bad risks. The paper’s owners say they haven’t been able to get a commercial loan in the current economic climate, so they have turned to the taxpayers.

The Citizen is seeking the loan from the town’s Revolving Loan Fund, which has been giving loans to private businesses for two decades. According to The News & Observer’s blog post about the loan request, recipients have included numerous small businesses, the co-op Weaver Street Market, the Orange County Social Club bar and the pet store Phydeaux. What newspaper would want to give up its special status to be thrown in with bars, pet stores and collectivist markets, no matter how funky?

I can understand the desperation one might feel, having sunk one’s life savings in a venture, and to come up short of cash. To paraphrase George Clooney’s character in “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” anyone will cast about in a time of trouble. The paper has told the town it plans to use the money to expand its press run from the current 6,000 to 10,000, but why not retrench and try to weather this recession without making a devil’s bargain?

Not too long ago such a move by a newspaper would have been considered unspeakably inappropriate by the journalism community, almost, well, Soviet. But with newspapers going out of business as fast as video stores, their standards have changed. Nationally, journalism gurus are trying to figure out how journalism is to continue when no one wants to pay for it. Some are even suggesting a government bailout.

But how can you be a watchdog over the bureaucrats and elected officials, whether in Carrboro, Detroit, Seattle or Minneapolis, when the government has a firm grip on your financial private parts? How can you be an independent journalist when the very people you are supposed to aggressively investigate and scrutinize hold your $240,000 condo as collateral?

Even my erstwhile communist friends understood this dilemma, but they had no choice. The city not only owned part of their newspaper, it owned the former state printing plant as well. If they didn’t play ball with the city council, they had no way of getting their paper printed.

Newspapers have always touted their special place in our society, noting that the first amendment to the Constitution validates that specialness. But The Carrboro Citizen, by wanting to play footsie financially with the people they are supposed to cover, is putting itself into the category of just another business wanting a taxpayer bailout.

One of the previous loan recipients, the pet store Phydeaux, moved to Chapel Hill after accepting Carrboro’s loan, leaving a vacant space in its wake. That’s the kind of thing a newspaper reporter might feel casts doubt on the efficacy of Carrboro’s loan program in helping create a vibrant downtown.

I don’t expect to see an in-depth look into the Revolving Fund in The Carrboro Citizen anytime soon. The paper is in a bind either way. If it accepts the loan, it can’t criticize the program, and if it is refused the loan, it can’t then turn around and investigate it without looking spiteful.

See what happens when you sleep with the enemy?

Jon Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper, Carolina Journal.